Flooding in China Threatens Millions

Devastating tropical storms have instigated landslides and a series of
floods in mainland China--and more are still on the way. State
officials are working around the clock on the massive, 8-million-person evacuation from the flood-ravaged regions. Officials are also monitoring
the rising tides that threaten to breach the massive Three Gorges Dam. Here are the latest angles to what is so far the worst
onslaught of flooding since 1998:

Worst Death Toll In a Decade due to tropical storms writes Chi-Chi Zhang for the Associated Press.
"Flooding, particularly along the Yangtze River Basin has overwhelmed
reservoirs, swamped towns and cities, and caused landslides that have
smothered communities, including toppling 645,000 houses. The Three
Gorges Dam faced its highest levels ever this week and water breached
the massive dam."

Test's Durability of Massive Dam with
storm water only 20 meters below maximum capacity, reports the BBC.
"The flow of the water overnight was the fastest ever recorded, at
70,000 cubic metres per second."

'Three Gorges' Softens the Blow
of the flooding, observes Shai Oster at The Wall Street Journal. "Flood
control was one of the primary reasons for building the Three Gorges
Dam. More than a million people were relocated to construct the world's
largest dam, but critics say that the dam doesn't fix soil erosion,
deforestation and the loss of wetlands that worsened flooding
downstream."

More Storms Coming writes CNN Beijing Bureau
Chief Jaime FlorCruz. "More than 230,000 people have been evacuated
from the city of Guangan in Sichuan, after the worst flooding there in
160 years. There's no power, no clean water, and the only way around is
by boat."

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